Folk CD 49 Items

Released via RCA Records - If its a triple album of instrumental flute music you've been waiting for, then wait no longer - Andre Benjamin - best known as Andre 3000 - is one of the most celebrated artists of the last three decades, an auteur whose work in music, film, fine arts, and fashion, continues to influence the cultural landscape on a global scale. As one half of Outkast, Andre established a brand new voice within rap that had never been experienced before when the pair emerged in the early '90s. ''This album is the most honest and interesting offering I can give today. I never could have imagined in high school, when I started rapping and doing music that I would be here right now playing wind instruments. Ha. This life ride always surprises me. I'm here for it.' - Andre 3000. Stock is very limited & will be allocated.

Uzelli Psychedelic Anadolu is a brand new product from Uzelli label, based in Turkey. Uzelli was established as a cassette label in Frankfurt in 1974 and since its beginnings was bringing Turkish music to Turkish people in their homeland and Germany. Produced more than thousand of albums of various artists from genres as arabesque, tavern, arabic music, psychedelic pop and rock, bellydance, Turkish classical music and folk.
Following a big international demand for original and obscure Turkish music from 70s and 80s, Uzelli selected tracks from their archive and brought them together as a compilation of psychedelic sounds of famous and unknown artists of Turkey. Compilation consists of highly popular names such as Erkin Koray or Ünol Büyükgönenç from legendary KardaÅ?lar band as well as undiscovered talents of vintage Turkish pop, rock and folk - Akbaba Akilisi, Zor Beyler, Kerem Güney, AÅ?ık Emrah, Elvan Sevil, NeÅ?e Alkan and Ali Ayhan. All tracks were recorded and produced by Uzelli between 1975 and 1984. Most of the tracks were never released on any other source than cassette. Uzelli brings them on vinyl, CD and digital. Compilation consists of 10 tracks plus 1 hidden track - all remastered by Emil Berliner Studio in Berlin. The design of the release was created to follow the original style of Uzelli's cassette covers' style from 70s and 80s.
Uzelli Psychedelic Anadolu is a first production that initiates a new project of Uzelli - creation of series of compilations and albums from its vast archive. Bringing original, undiscovered sounds from Turkey to worldwide music amatours is a main goal of the production. The project is created by international crew - curated by Polish music explorer and digger, esthetically redesigned by Polish artist, backed by Turkish researcher, American ethnomusicologist, Israeli and German DJs and producers. All production and management of the project takes place in Istanbul, in the headquaters of Uzelli company. All this make the production awaited by many music and culture networks all around the world.

The original album, Remastered by Bernie Grundman
• 12 bonus tracks taken from the original 1996 session tapes
• 64 page booklet including new liner notes, photos, song notes & lyrics

‘Buena Vista Social Club’ is both the name given to this extraordinary group of musicians and the album, recorded in just seven days in 1996 in Havana’s 1950s vintage EGREM studios. It was clear from the atmosphere of the recording sessions that something very special was taking place. However, no one could have predicted that Buena Vista Social Club would become a worldwide phenomenon – awarded a Grammy in 1997 and, at 8 million copies, outselling any other record in the same genre. The acclaim of the original album has elevated the artists (including Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González & Omara Portuondo) to superstar status, inspired an award-winning film by Wim Wenders, and has contributed to popularising Cuba’s rich musical heritage. Produced by Ry Cooder for World Circuit, the timeless quality of the music and the sheer verve of the veteran performers have ensured that this will go down as one of the landmark recordings of the 20th century. To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the album’s recording, World Circuit will release Special Edition Remaster formats of the album in September 2021, featuring previously unheard tracks, previously unseen photos and new liner notes. The releases will be supported by an international PR & marketing campaign, events and digital initiatives.

Box including a 4CD Anthology, 2LP on black vinyl, 1 LP of Macalla, a 7", a book, 4 post cards and a poster.

Sacd

Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series)

Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Atlantic Records!

R&B, soul singer Wilson Pickett's classic third album

Features "In the Midnight Hour," "Land of a Thousand Dances" and "Ninety-nine and a Half (Won't Do)"

Hybrid Stereo SACD

The Exciting Wilson Pickett, released in 1966, was R&B and soul singer Wilson Pickett's third album, charting at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard R&B albums chart and No. 21 on the popular albums chart, becoming the highest-charting studio album of Pickett's career.

The making of the album saw Pickett end his relationship with Stax Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had cut his early singles, and move to Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he would record for the next two years. According to AllMusic, this album firmly established Picket's "stature as a major '60s soul man," launching four major crossover hits.

The chart-toppers include "In the Midnight Hour" reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B singles chart and No. 21 on the pop singles chart. "Land of a Thousand Dances" reached No. 1 and No. 6 respectively, his biggest pop hit. "Ninety-nine and a Half (Won't Do)" reached No. 13 and No. 53. "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)," a song which Pickett had not on first hearing liked, reached No. 1 and No. 13.

The deeper album cuts hold significant appeal as well and include standards "Something You Got," "Barefootin'" and "Mercy Mercy" as well as several original tunes with Memphis Soul greats Steve Cropper, Eddie Floyd, and David Porter.

Hot on the heels of their third album Forget The Curse (Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox, 2023), Fördämning Arkiv presents a Troth anthology compiling early non-album material and other odds and ends from the Australian duo. A massive 15-track retrospective, Uncut Flowers consists of the tracks from the Our Opaque Wreath cassette (Moontown Records, 2019), The Optimist (Essential Minerals, 2019), the Garland And Gauze 7" (Altered States Tapes, 2020) as well as various compilation contributions. 74 minutes.

"In evidence throughout is Troth’s penchant for capturing and collecting sounds from their environments, transforming field recordings, organic and non-organic sonic sources into textures of a palette that they then compose and improvise with. There’s a virtuosity of sampling and sound manipulation. The recurrent sounds from Besseny and Bowman’s intrepid field and bush explorations often verge on an indistinguishability between the synthesised and the concrete-organic. Permutated hand percussion or the throbbing of a waterfall; xylophonic melody or the tape loop of a bird call. The clank and tings of unidentified objects, matter itself writhing in the veggie garden. An environment starts speaking from iron gates in a paddock anywhere, close to the damp leaf and loam of a forest floor far below unseen birds and their cacophony of song and chatter. Tracks often collapse into a grey zone stretched between composition and improvisation." - Chris Colla

Digipack in an edition of 500 copies including a 8-page booklet with liner notes, photos etc. Mastered by Joakim Karlsson. Artwork by Charlott Malmenholt. Fördämning Arkiv 10.

Rubinho E Mauro Assumpção's 'Perfeitamente, Justamente Quando Cheguei' has to be up there as one of the finest Brazilian-psych-folk-MPB records we know. Unfortunately, it's very hard to find in the wild; even on digging trips to Brazil, an original copy rarely shows up, and when it does, it comes with a hefty price tag.

This highly sought-after rarity was released on the Brazilian label Tapecar Records in 1972 and is the one and only album by the sensational pairing of Rubinho and Mauro Assumpção. Effortlessly blending folk, MPB, funky-psych, rock, and relaxed, swaggering samba, this record ought to be heralded as a true Brazilian classic. However, maybe due to its scarcity and the previous reissue predominantly being only available to the Brazilian market, it has not had a chance to fully shine and find the wider audience it deserves. Through our reissue we hope to put things right. Fans of records by Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges are sure to enjoy the same magic and allure in 'Perfeitamente, Justamente Quando Cheguei'.

In addition to being the album’s songwriters, Mauro Assumpção took on the role of producer and Rubinho was co-producer as well as playing piano, organ, acoustic guitar and performing vocals. The record features the drummer Gegê who worked with Milton Nascimento, Edu Lobo, Nana Caymmi, Dom Um Romão and more. It also features guitarist Rick Ferreira, who played with Erasmo Carlos, Gal Costa and other greats. Rounding off the players on the album are Darcy Da Cruz and Formiga who have graced many a fine recording on horns.

'Perfeitamente, Justamente Quando Cheguei' is a truly stunning work that washes over you with beauty. Delve in and savour.

Aspidistrafly, the Singaporean duo comprising April Lee and producer Ricks Ang, return with Altar of Dreams, their first studio album in a decade.

While their last album A Little Fable introduced the world to their bucolic and wispy brand of folk songwriting, Altar of Dreams sees the duo – also the founders of Kitchen. Label – harness their experiences over the past decade to create a wholly new and inspired vision. In this new and third album, they drew upon a rich palette of shapes, sounds and movement: straddling between the visionary photography of Serge Lutens and Dora Maar, 80s Japanese ambient pop, musique concrète and the mournful strings of Béla Bartók.

The world in which Aspidistrafly once inhabited was foggy and awash in faded memory. A feeling of being suspended in time felt inescapable with each listen. In Altar of Dreams, the fog is clearing up. At nine songs under 35 minutes, the album possesses all the defining hallmarks of Aspidistrafly – poetic lyricism, cosmic introspection, lush strings, surrealism, tenderness and texture. But what was once seemingly inscrutable has now been explored with astounding clarity, the duo maneuvering through a space-time continuum with delicate leaps.

‘How To Find A Marblewing’, the opening track, is a heady sound collage of early internet sounds, film, anime, and chopped-and-screwed 90s J-pop. It’s a presence deeply embedded throughout the record, a method Lee describes as “a form of environmental/tape treatment”.

The compositions glimmer with sincerity, addressing all at once destruction, mystery, uncertainty, hopes and dreams. The resulting music is backed by an opulence only possible with a line-up of guest musicians. ‘The Voice of Flowers’ is stirring in its balance of flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone and piano, bolstered by a string quartet. Kitchen. Label artist haruka nakamura features on the track alongside Kyo Ichinose (who arranged the strings for the album) and wind instrumentalist Araki Shin.

‘Interlude: Chrysalises and Larvae’ takes the heavy path downward, adopting its name from the 1973 surrealist odyssey The Hourglass Sanatorium. It leads into ‘Companion to Owls’, a gothic pop paean to mortality inspired by the Book of Job.

Before the namesake centrepiece of the album, another interlude arrives in ‘A Ceremonial Ode’, both of which were stirred by a series of regal Shiseido ads from the 1980s starring model Sayoko Yamaguchi. ‘Altar of Dreams’ is haunted by the lucid dreams that once provided escapism for Lee. Its tranquility belies a simmering tension, just as how a lucid dream would offer control in the face of the unknown. “In one of them, I was floating in a vast darkness safe and secure, and then I fell into a turbulent mirage where I willingly allowed myself to be swept away further and further from reality, hoping that I would never wake up,” she says. “Needless to say I did, and ended up writing this song on one of these dead nights.”

If the title track replicates the feeling of falling deep into that spiral, ‘Silk and Satins’ is a direct analysis of the phenomenon. Warped frequencies collide with nature and television sound effects – the latter sourced from 80s Singaporean horror series Mystery – within an inter-dimensional music world. The track was made with featured artist Sugai KEN, whose own work is an endless scroll of intoxicating found sounds.

‘Quintessence’, the sweeping closing track, distills all the elements scattered across the album into a coda that beautifully refuses to resolve. At first an exercise in guitar looping, the song was then written without a beginning and end in mind. “I’d like to think of it as poetry that’s sung,” says Lee.

In Altar of Dreams, Aspidistrafly are renewed and hopeful. They’ve emerged from a decade spent reframing the world they see through vivid dreams and memories. Now, it’s all yours to experience.

Dendê Macêdo is a percussionist, singer, composer, bandleader, teacher, and multi-instrumentalist. He’s been a professional musician since the age of 14, when he appeared in the frontline of Timbalada, Carlinhos Brown’s superstar percussion ensemble. Since 2001, he’s been developing his solo career, splitting his time between the US and Bahia and working with his folkloric group Ologundê and his flagship band Dendê & Band. Now on their second album, Dendê & Band have cultivated a unique sound where Afro-Brazilian traditions like samba de roda and candomble have been seamlessly melded with world rhythms like rumba, afrobeat and mbalax. Dendê & Band have recently performed at venues such as the Glastonbury Festival in the UK, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles; the KW Latinfest in Canada; the Penang World Music Festival in Malaysia; Summerdance in Chicago and the Chile Pepper Fiesta at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

Expedition is a collaboration between sound artist The Dead Mauriacs (aka Olivier Prieur) and collage artist Evan Crankshaw, based on their mutual interest in treating exotica as both a subject and a material. Evan Crankshaw's 2015 collage book, also entitled Expedition, is assembled and collaged by hand from a vast archive of popular exoticist printed materials, and explores recurring motifs in expedition narratives, simultaneously evoking and alienating the exoticist fantasy.

In 2018, the book was interpreted for a live performance at Festival BBMix (Boulognes-Billancourt, France) in collaboration with The Dead Mauriacs, who created a complete exotica-concrète score accompanying projected images of the book & live narration. That collaboration can be heard on this album, an armchair-travel virtual-voyage to the heart of an imagined actual elsewhere, stitched from pieces of narcotizing fabulisms, disturbing actualities, and incomprehensibilities – an interior excursion into the exotic immensity.

"Mulid El-Magnoun” addresses the term ‘moulid’ and its various manifestations it takes on in Egyptian folk music. Here, the word ‘moulid’ does not exclusively refer to Sufi moulids: rather also the intertwined artistic spaces that lie between the moulid in its Sufi sense and what it carries in distinctive rhythmic patterns, musical instruments, and artistic forms, and the moulid as a musical genre originating from folk weddings that enjoy special aesthetics and unique styles.

Through this project, Yunis tries to explore the spaces where those two concepts collide through producing an original musical composition which reflects his own vision and understanding of ‘moulids’ as well as the manifestations the word carries within him.

About Yunis:

Yunis (b. 1994 - Kafr El-Dauwar) is an Egyptian musician and music Producer. He has produced two albums until now; «The Blue Djinn Dance» which was his first solo album, and «Ya Khal» which was a collaborative work with Ibrahim X. He is also a co-founder of Kafr El-Dauwar Records, an independent digital record label interested in contemporary and experimental music, founded by a group of young artists with the aim of creating a musical movement in the city, by supporting a group of artists to start their music from Kafr El-Dauwar with the potential of going with the music to the farthest point it could arrive.

In his music, Yunis seeks inspiration from the popular Egyptian folkloric heritage, which boasts many instruments, tools, and musical styles. He then reads and analyzes the musical legacy and presents it with the forms of his contemporary time.

Full album dedicated to Hamid El Shaeri’s work on the Egyptian Slam! label. Hamid El Shaeri is the artist behind Habibi Funk’s most popular song to date, “Ayonha”, originally re-released in 2017 on the first Habibi Funk Compilation (habibi007). If you were to ask for a defining Habibi Funk track, there are a few that come to mind: from Fadoul’s “Sid Redad,” Dalton’s “Soul Brother” to Ahmed Malek’s “Omar Gatlato.” However, none are as widely connected with us at this point as Hamid Al Shaeri’s “Ayonha.” We heard the track for the first time when we were working on selecting tracks for your first compilation and we instantly loved it. We obviously had heard of Hamid El Shaeri’s music before, but only material from his Al Jeel phase when he was already the full-blown superstar he is now. Listening to his releases from the early 1980’s opened a whole new door for us. At the time, Hamid had just left Libya to pursue his career in Egypt via a detour in London, where he recorded his first album. Hamid’s distinct sound of the sound is quintessentially reliant on heavy synths and so it was particularly important to purchase these synths in a timely manner. “Whenever a new one [synthesizer] would come out, we would have to buy it immediately, otherwise someone else would get their hands on that sound.” London also played an important role for Hamid as a musical epicenter. He fondly reminisces about the many live shows he attended there, including some of the biggest international musicians like Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson. After returning to Cairo where he also recorded his following albums, he connected with Slam! for the release of his debut, laying the foundation of a collaboration that lasted for 5 albums. Luckily, we were able to connect with Hamid through our friend Youssra El Hawary, whose extensive network has opened many doors for us within the Egyptian music scene. We met Hamid for the first time probably in 2016 at his office / rehearsal studio in the outskirts Cairo. We were expecting a larger-than-life character in-line with his status as a certified superstar, yet the actual person turned out to be very approachable and super easy to connect with. He liked the idea of an effort to amplify his early works again, which, when originally released, were far from an economic success. While he was down to assist with an interview and his blessing for the project he also told us that for any license we needed to speak with the original label Slam! who released these songs, still held the rights and also remained in business over the decades though they didn’t actively release any new music. Hany Sabet had started Slam! Records in the early 1980s and focused on cassette tape releases, the format that expedited the success of a new generation of record labels in Egypt. By the mid 1980’s, Slam! had become one of the most successful and economically dominant record labels in Egypt, with Hamid El Shaeri being just one of their key artists, alongside Mohamed Mounir, Hanan, Hakim, Mustafa Amar and many more. Luckily, Hany Sabet turned out to be a friend of our colleague Malak Makar’s father, which probably helped to warm him to the idea of licensing “Ayonha” to this - in the scale of his world - tiny label from Germany. Eventually “Ayonha” ended up b ecoming a widely successful release and either Hany or we brought up the idea of a full album dedicated to Hamid El Shaeri’s work on Slam!. "Maktoub Aleina” is the first single and will be released January 14th. Following the massive success of "Ayonha,” “Maktoub Aleina” is another mid-tempo groover with a beautiful, synth-forward melody, that brings together a lovely combination of soul, disco and Arabic pop music of the highest order, giving a taste of full album. The second single, “Yekfini Nesma Sotak” will be released January 28th and combines Hamid’s unique formula of soul and pop, held together by a catchy synth melody. “Yekfini Nesma Sotak” picks up the pace a bit, making the uplifting mood of the track even more powerful. Third single, arriving February 11th, is “Dari Demou’ek,” one of the stand out tracks of Hamid’s early recordings done for Slam! in the early 1980s. Dominated by a disco infused bassline, the track offers a lot of space of the funky production to shine while Hamid inserts his vocals at all the right moments. A masterpiece of disco touched by Arabic pop music. Full album arrives February 25th. This release is dedicated to Hany Sabet, the founder of Slam! and his wife Rosemary Jane Sabet (who took the photos we used for the cover and the booklet), who sadly passed away during the time it took us to prepare the release. As always both vinyl and CD come with an extensive booklet with an interview with Hamid as well as unseen photos.

From 1975, this is Baris Manço’s masterpiece. Stunning cosmic, psychedelic, groovy conceptual album with fantastic electronics use and a strong Turkish folk flavour as usual. Again, this is the first official, proper CD reissue, and comes with a booklet with linernotes and photos.

Master of the fuzz saz, Turkey’s answer to E. Clapton brings burly axe attacks to the snakey folk melodies of Anatolia. Long proven to cause just the brain-rot you’re looking for, here’s a Koray collection of tracks taken from singles and LPs for your acid-drenched pleasure. The guitar slinger who was once stabbed for wearing his hair too long around the streets of Istanbul interweaves melodies as old as the ruins of Ephesus with the riffs of Black Sabbath & his own souped-up baglama. Find out why they call him Erkin Baba. Double CD set, with insert / booklet including extensive linernotes.

Sublime Frequencies finally unleashes it’s Essential compilation from 1970’s Egypt. Modal instrumental tracks from Baligh Hamdi - one of the most important Arabic composers of the 20th Century (writing for legends Umm Kalthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Sabah, Warda, and many others). Features his legendary group the “Diamond Orchestra” with Omar Khorshid on guitar, Magdi al-Husseini on organ, Samir Sourour on saxophone, and Faruq Salama on accordion. All of these musicians were discovered and recruited by Hamdi to interpret his vision of a modernized, hybrid Arabic music. Under Hamdi’s direction, this orchestra charted a new melodic direction and created a new musical language. This compilation is culled from a specific era of Hamdi’s long career, a decade where he fully realized an international music which incorporated beat driven Eastern tinged jazz, theremin draped orchestral noir, tracks that feature searing guitar solos from none other than Omar Khorshid, and a selection of buzzing, sitar driven, Indo-Arabic tracks establishing a meeting of mid-east and eastern psychedelic exotica, and a vision that created some of the hippest music coming out of the Middle East from the late 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s.

Ipek Yolu is the Turkish name for the Silk Road which connected the East and the West. This band does not deal in silk but they connect flavors, smells and sounds from different corners of the globe, connecting the world.
The band merges bass-heavy electro-tinged cumbia grooves, saz riffs and surf guitar into a multicultural melting pot of South American rhythms, Anatolian folk music and 60s psychedelic rock. A unique universe of sound that bridges the tropical jungles and the dusty deserts in a kaleidoscopic blend of music. Ipek Yolu has used 2020 to write their debut album Tropical Anatolia and are ready to hit the venues and festivals.
The members of Ipek Yolu first got together for an improvised jam session during the Aarhus Roots & Hybrid Festival in 2018. The show was set up as a special one-time-only show merging members from the bands Hudna & Junglelyd. The show ended up lasting for almost three hours. It didn’t take them long to discover they were onto something special. If you know any of these bands mentioned you know you’re in for a body-shaking party, characterised by musical curiosity and improvisation.
The three members of Ipek Yolu have all been part of the Danish music scene for several years. The band leader, Orhan Özgür Turan, is a well-known and respected saz player all over Denmark, and has made a name for himself through his efforts in the Anatolian Folk band Hudna. In 2018 he won an award as Global Roots Artist of the year at The Danish World Music Awards. Olaf Brinch and Lasse Aagaard have worked together for many years making high energy cumbia with their band Junglelyd and Afrobeat with their band African Connection. Olaf is also an integral part of the Danish band AddisAbabaBand. In addition, Olaf and Lasse have toured and recorded with great musicians such as CC Yoyo, former drummer of Fela Kuti, in both Ghana and Denmark. All of the past experiences collided to create Ipek Yolu.

Diane Cluck Co-Produced Her Eighth Album Alongside Multi-Instrumentalist Colin Killalea. "It's The First Album I've Recorded In My Adopted Hometown Of Charlottesville, Virginia, And I Let Sounds Of The Region Influence Its Making And Bend My Songwriting. I Wanted To Collaborate, And To Focus On Deep Emotion Including Golden-Yellow Joyful. I Wanted To Make An Album That Honored My Family And Could Resonate With Young And Old." Spaciously Arranged Instrumentation Highlights The Strength Of Diane's Lyricism And Signature Vocal Style, Described By Npr As "Turning A Pitch Wheel With One Hand And A Tone Knob With The Other." The Album Features An Array Of Accompanying Musicians Including Longtime Collaborator Isabel Castellvi On Cello, John D'earth On Flugelhorn, Michelle Oliva On Bass Clarinet, John Ashley Murphy On Harmonica, Brian Caputo On Drums And Curtis Fye On Bass. Diane And Co-Producer Colin Killalea Each Play Piano, Guitar, Drums And Percussion. Common Wealth Deftly Weaves Disparate Elements Of Old-Time Music, Classical, Folk, Jazz Improvisation And Church Hymn Into Something Uniquely Vibrant.

Recorded between Lausanne and Brussels during summer 2019, this new series of songs by Meril Wubslin dig deeper into this tribal, rustic and minimal tendency that they had in the two previous albums. It is the desire to search for sounds, to manipulate matter: sound matter, rhythmic matter, to knead it to its hottest point, that guided the work of composition. All vintage guitars were recorded without amps. Tambourines and other maracas were approached as a drum kit. But the harmonies and melodies are still present and sometimes event enhanced by the occasional participation of a choir of female voices or a minimal synth line. Always with this desire to use French, their mother tongue, while trying to avoid the trap of « variété française ».

With this new album, we wanted to try something slightly different with the sound. Explore new ways to record our instruments and voices. Thus we decided to put away the amplifiers that we used for rockier moods. And we tried the acoustic option. We were surprised by the wide range of possibilities, much more direct and much more emotional actually. About the texts, we still insist on this open way of writing, a mixture of abstract and concrete which offers several understandings. With this liberty in the structure, we avoid the predominance of the message, to go towards a more sensitive and open meaning.

13 tracks produced by Rick Rubin

After the very acoustic "¿Dónde estás María?". I decided to try a new experiment taking as a reference the legendary group "Cumbia siglo XX" which is a group who explores a futuristic vision of coastal cumbia in the 80s, together with other groups such as "Grupo folclórico", "2000 voltios" and others, mainly under the label Machuca and Felito records. This new 80s cumbia was a combination of funky basses and a further evolution of the rhythms, blending this style with disco and even rock music and superimposing the traditional versus the urban context and the modernity.

Meridian Brothers took this as a departing point and inspiration, making the same experiment but in XXI century, using the modern media of this time; all kinds of drum machines, guitars and synths, algorithmic software etc, and also taking into account the global exposition of modern cumbia in the 2010s. So all kinds of influences and genres are blended around this cumbia axis. Urban beats, synthy grooves, glitches and all kinds of swear words (and its censoship &$*/&##), and all kinds of slang languaje are included in the songs of the album.

All these elements are filtered and passed through the traditional train of thought of Meridian Brothers, which is the figuration of an abstract picture of sound put it within a concrete context or cultural tendency.

Ben ’Tukumazan’ Molatzi (1954 -2016), a self-taught singer and songwriter from Tsumeb, Namibia, wrote timeless, beautiful ballads drawing on the distinctive melodies and harmonies of his Damara and Sotho heritage.
His music recordings have been slumbering in oblivion in Namibian radio archives. His songs were consciously censored and damaged as its messages did not please the South African apartheid regime. The album contains field and studio recordings that were made in 1981 by SWABC. To this day, these recordings have never been commercially released. In his liner notes, Thorsten Schütte describes his ultimately successful search for Ben Molatzi and further meetings with the artist, who talks in detail about his life, his songs and the life circumstances in his country.
On these recordings he accompanies himself on the guitar. The lyrics are reprinted in the enclosed booklet in the original tribal language as well as in English translation.

Two years after the success of „Nem Kaldı“, outernational psych-pop sensation Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek deliver their debut album, „Kar Yağar“ - and it was worth the wait! Over the course of it’s 12 tracks, the powerful sound of the Bağlama [Turkish lute] and Derya Yıldırım’s stunning vocals, builds and unravels stories together with the guitars, organs, drums, flute and bass.

Kar Yağar (which translates as „Snow Falls“) has the dynamics of an epic journey through the Anatolian highlands where deep-rooted folk effortlessly switches to sparkly improvisation or dancy pop tracks.

The album was self produced at their studio in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and the band's tour de force resides in their ability to develop their personal sound and approach whilst keeping their heart tuned to Derya Yıldırım's Anatolian roots.

The album opens with „Üç Kız Bir Ana“ (three daughters, one mother), a smooth, yet epic 5/4 track that introduces the live and psychedelic sound of the band with influences ranging from Anatolian music to 70’s jazz and early prog rock.

The title-song „Kar Yağar“ [written by Derya Yıldırım] is a fresh pop track melodically rooted in the Turkish folk music tradition. The song's lyrics, referring to snow falling in the summer, are an extended metaphor which tells a strong and emotionally charged personal story.
Here, Grup Şimşek bring out their unmistakable signature sound - light and movement inducing tempo, elegant wah wah guitars and magical quartertoned synth licks.

Original songs and instrumentals - all composed and arranged by the band - are scattered throughout the album. Notably - „Seni Hala“, a tear-drawing ballad with stripped-down acoustic arrangement and haunting choir… And Graham Mushnik’s dreamy instrumental „Çocuklar“, in which the band chose to feature a poem by one of Turkey's most renowned 20th century poet Nâzım Hikmet Ran whose title translates as „give the world to our children“. The poem is meaningfully read by Derya’s father Mustafa Yıldırım.

The LP also contains a string of Turkish folk songs, that the band entirely re-arranged whilst preserving their original spirit and soul. In „Ey Şahin Bakışlım“ Grup Şimşek pay tribute to the Alevi culture, a minority community in Turkey for which music - and particularly the Bağlama instrument - has a sacred value. A powerful and majestic version of Mahzuni Şerif’s „Dom Dom Kurşunu“ - one of Grup Şimşek fans’ favourites at live shows - is also featured.

Recorded and Mixed by Grup Şimşek
Mastered by Tim Stollenwerk at Stereophonic
Vinyl Cut by Adi Flück at Centraldubs

Sam Shepherd pulls from "global soul, ambient, jazz and folk" genres on the 17-track mix, according to the press release. It features four new tracks, including one from Floating points himself: a cover of Kenny Wheeler's "The Sweet Time Suite, Part I - Opening." Sarah Davachi, Toshimaru Nakamura and Lauren Laverne also contribute exclusive material, plus music by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, British jazz trio Azimuth and recent Resident Advisor feature star Kara-Lis Coverdale.

"The music is a selection of the kind of records I play to set the tone when DJing all night long," said Shepherd.

Comes in large format duo-case with 60 page booklet. Osharaku is a traditional Japanese form of musical entertainment, featuring mainly voice, shamisen and percussion, with a repertoire of folk and popular songs, performed by farmers and fishermen for local audiences. This compilation, 28 tracks compiled by Riyo Mountains, is the fourth release in the EM Records/Riyo Mountains Japanese folk series. These recordings feature legendary Osharaku masters, recorded in their homes, brilliantly capturing the casual warmth and vitality characteristic of the style. Osharaku is unique in its use of shamisen, originally an “uptown” urban instrument, in a “downtown” non-urban setting. These joyous tracks, all recorded in the 1960s and 70s, are available as a 2CD set or a single 12” vinyl LP, with English translations and rare photos. Cover art by Shinsuke Takagi (Soi48).

Riyo Mountains are a Japanese folk song research team formed by Mood Yama and Takumi Saito. They are resident DJs at the renowned party "Soi48" at Be-Wave, Tokyo, featuring music from all over the world. They produced the Japanese folk song mix-CD series entitled "Riyo Mountains Mix" and also direct the reissue series of Japanese folk music on EM Records, including the releases "Yumi-kagura", "Sakai Ishinage Odori”, and "Kizaki Ondo”. Riyo Mountains have appeared as DJs at many events/programs including NTS (London) and Japanese Bon-Odori traditional dance festivals. Their articles about Japanese folk music are now published serially in the Japanese web magazine “boid".

Saigon Supersound Continues… to present more interesting tunes of a musical era that has long been obscured. With the well-received Volume 1, we are very delighted to dig deeper and share with you the beautiful music of a short but significant period in Vietnam‘s history.
Much like the country itself, the music of Vietnam has endured many twists. As the result of the Geneva Accords in 1954, Vietnam was divided into two. From the North, the Nationalist forces fought to reunite Vietnam as a Communist State, while the American troops backed the government of the South. This caused a mass migration of Northerners to the South, which includes many Tân Nhạc (Modern Music) singers and songwriters. Often characterized by its emotive, poetic and prolific personality, Tân Nhạc continued to freely develop in the South and progressively vacating from the influences of its main inspiration, French music. In the North, the Resistance music, or the so-called Nhạc Đỏ (Red Music), which promoted socialism, patriotism and anti-capitalism was the only genre allowed on national radio. Tân Nhạc was something new to the South Vietnamese repertoire. Between 1954–1960, the theme of hometown (quê hương) was a main inspiration for many songwriters such as Hoàng Thi Thơ, Lam Phương and Nguyễn Hữu Thiết. The 9th title of the compilation, “Thôn Trăng Mở Hội Trăng Tròn” showcases a variety of images that were often described in this genre: the harvest moon, playful children, old mother…
Every recording made in this era is then an organic combination of human experiences, communications and uniqueness. In 1965, the first American troop landed in Vietnam, bringing with them the musical influences of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley… The Vietnamese people quickly integrated it into the repertoire with hope to further diversify the music of Vietnam. Constantly changing and learning from different cultures, the modern music of Vietnam cuts a window into the soul of a Vietnamese person and the country’s history as a whole. With that, we hope that Saigon Supersound Volume 2 would take you on a trip back to the unique atmosphere of Saigon through the many different palettes of music that this beautiful place offers.

Berlin producer Robot Koch is back for his third full length release, “The Other Side”.

Although Robot Koch has an international reputation as being “One of Europe's finest producers of the beat generation“ (Low End Theory), he is much more than just a beatmaker… “(Post)-dubstep infused Electronic Hip Hop“ is far too constrained a label to understand what this producer is all about. Instead of following the sound of his previous albums “Death Star Droid” (“Essential listening” – Bobby Friction BBC) and “Songs For Trees and Cyborgs“ (“Music for a modern age that has rarely sounded so good” – Boomkat), Koch takes the genre defying ingredients from these previous records to another level. There still are some of those “Galactic ten ton beats and space age melodies“ (Dazed and Confused) that made the previous albums staple drops in the playlists of Mary Anne Hobbs, Starkey, Daedelus and Gaslamp Killer to name a few, but there is a new dimension to Koch's production and songwriting that didn’t show on his previous records.

The cinematic vibe of tracks like “Nitesky”, the quirky and moody feel of “Bugs” and the electricity of “Tapedeck” show how Koch more than ever manages to create intimate and timeless pieces of music that are soulful, deep, mysterious and that will appeal to fans of cutting edge Electronica and modern pop music alike. This is the most personal record of Robot Koch to date. Instead of going for big name features Koch teamed up with lesser know artists like Kansas based vocal talent John LaMonica, long time friend and theatre composer Nielson and mexican singer/songwriter Graciela Maria to find the right voices for his compositions. John LaMonica infuses his whimsical and heartfelt melodies that breathe an air of darkness and nostalgia with Koch's fresh and forward thinking instrumentals to create something that fans of Radiohead, The XX and Jamie Lidell should not sleep on.

After the release of the John Robinson collaboration album (“Robot Robinson” – Project Mooncircle) earlier this year, it seems surprising how extensive Robert’s output is, but don’t be mistaken, this album is a longer term project than just releasing the songs Koch made in the last year. Some of the songs found on “The Other Side” were made seven years ago.

Berlin producer Robot Koch is back for his third full length release, “The Other Side”.

Although Robot Koch has an international reputation as being “One of Europe's finest producers of the beat generation“ (Low End Theory), he is much more than just a beatmaker… “(Post)-dubstep infused Electronic Hip Hop“ is far too constrained a label to understand what this producer is all about. Instead of following the sound of his previous albums “Death Star Droid” (“Essential listening” – Bobby Friction BBC) and “Songs For Trees and Cyborgs“ (“Music for a modern age that has rarely sounded so good” – Boomkat), Koch takes the genre defying ingredients from these previous records to another level. There still are some of those “Galactic ten ton beats and space age melodies“ (Dazed and Confused) that made the previous albums staple drops in the playlists of Mary Anne Hobbs, Starkey, Daedelus and Gaslamp Killer to name a few, but there is a new dimension to Koch's production and songwriting that didn’t show on his previous records.

The cinematic vibe of tracks like “Nitesky”, the quirky and moody feel of “Bugs” and the electricity of “Tapedeck” show how Koch more than ever manages to create intimate and timeless pieces of music that are soulful, deep, mysterious and that will appeal to fans of cutting edge Electronica and modern pop music alike. This is the most personal record of Robot Koch to date. Instead of going for big name features Koch teamed up with lesser know artists like Kansas based vocal talent John LaMonica, long time friend and theatre composer Nielson and mexican singer/songwriter Graciela Maria to find the right voices for his compositions. John LaMonica infuses his whimsical and heartfelt melodies that breathe an air of darkness and nostalgia with Koch's fresh and forward thinking instrumentals to create something that fans of Radiohead, The XX and Jamie Lidell should not sleep on.

After the release of the John Robinson collaboration album (“Robot Robinson” – Project Mooncircle) earlier this year, it seems surprising how extensive Robert’s output is, but don’t be mistaken, this album is a longer term project than just releasing the songs Koch made in the last year. Some of the songs found on “The Other Side” were made seven years ago.

Mexican Singer/Songwriter Graciela Maria has been singing since she was a little kid. Having livied in Mexico City for many years, she was part of the mexican electronic music scene and made music with local producers signal deluxe.

In 2009 she met berlin based producer Robot Koch in New York at his show at Coco66 in Brooklyn.
They started making music together and Grace was featured on Robot's album “Death Star Droid” as well as on the Ep “Listen To Them Fade”. 2009 marked the beginning of a journey both musically and geographically for Graciela, as she moved from Mexico City to Berlin and started playing shows wolrdwide with Robot Koch.
They played everywhere from the Sonar Festival in Barcelona to some obscure art festivals in Bulgaria and Tunesia.

With Many Places, Graciela Maria's stunning debut album, she steps into the light as more than just a featured vocalist on Koch's electronica and dubstep driven compositions: Her own music breathes the vibe of classic singer/songwriters like Tim Buckley and Elliot Smith, with the music and the production being even more organic and live sounding than on the previous Koch tracks. The songwriting took place all over the world, as Graciela traveled and lived in many places recently, accompanied by her little notebook and her digital camera, which she uses to record song ideas on all the time. The topics she deals with are both surreal and personal and leave it up to the listener to be interpretated.

Producer Robot Koch teamed up with friend and fellow musician Sneaky (Fingathing / Ninja Tune) to create this organic and retro futuristic sounding album, that incorporates Double Bass, Live Drums, Cello and other String instruments and well as a subtle touch of cutting edge electronic production which Robot Koch is know for. The track "Many Places" features a string arrangement by Fiora Cutler.

Graciela Maria is an artist to watch out for in the future as she proves to create timeless pieces of music that are appealing to Indie/pop listeners and lover's of electronic music alike.

Following on from last year’s acclaimed Vrindavan 1982 by rudra veena master Z.M. Dagar, Black Truffle is thrilled to present a pair of archival releases from the Dagar Brothers, among the most revered 20th century exponents of the ancient North Indian dhrupad tradition. The vocal duo of Moinuddin and Aminuddin Dagar (sometimes referred to as the ‘senior’ Dagar Brothers to distinguish them from their younger siblings, Zahiruddin and Faiyazuddin Dagar), belonged to the nineteenth generation of a family of musicians in which dhrupad tradition has been kept alive through patrilinear transmission, each generation undergoing a rigorous education of many years’ duration that can include singing up to twelve hours each day. Famed for the meditative purity of their approach to dhrupad, the Dagar Brothers helped to keep the tradition alive in the years after Indian independence in 1947, when the royal courts that had traditionally patronised dhrupad musicians were abolished. Many Western listeners were first introduced to dhrupad by the Dagar Brothers’ tour of Europe in 1964-65 and their LP in UNESCO’s ‘Musical Anthology of the Orient’ collection, both organised by pioneering musicologist and scholar of Indian culture Alain Daniélou. Documents from this tour are especially precious, as Moinuddin Dagar passed away in 1966. Unheard until now, Berlin 1964 – Live (released alongside Bt114, a newly discovered studio session from the same trip) documents a concert held at the Charlottenburg Palace in September 1964. Accompanied only by Moinuddin’s wife Saiyur on tanpura and Raja Chatrapati Singh on pakhawaj (a large double-headed drum), the brothers present stunning performances of two ragas stretching out over 65 minutes, exemplifying what a journalist at the time called the ‘pristine severity’ of their style. Much of each piece is taken up by the alap, the highly improvised exposition section where the notes of the raga are gradually introduced as the singing builds in intensity. As Francesca Cassio points out in her extensive liner notes, both performances are somewhat unorthodox in beginning with the raga scale being sung in its entirety, ascending and descending; this is probably, as she suggests, a strategy to introduce the European audience to the language of the music they are about to hear. From there, both ragas settle into alaps of breathtaking beauty, with the two brothers trading long solo passages that move gradually from extended held notes at the bottom of the scale to animated melodic variations as it ascends in pitch. Within the atmosphere of meditative attention, the range of melodic, rhythmic, and timbral invention is remarkable. Especially on the opening ‘Rāga Miyān kī Todī’, the final moments of the alap find the voices at a peak of intensity, their microtonal ornamentation taking on an ecstatic, warbling quality. Only once the wordless, free-floating alap is over and the composition proper begins to the brothers sing in unison, joined by the pakhawaj for a rhythmic section that in both ragas develops gradually into a propulsive display of melodic invention and metrical nuance. Accompanied by detailed liner notes and striking archival images, Berlin 1964 – Live is a rare document of these masterful exponents of one of the world’s most profound musical traditions.

Reverse board tip on with silver pantone print. The first ever reissue of Dorothy Carter's 1978 folk/psych/drone masterpiece. A truly unique album in Dorothy's catalog of otherwise traditional psaltery folk music, Waillee Waillee's essence sits in the confluence of Dorothy's mastery of the dulcimer; its shimmering notes fully enmeshed with the tremulous, cavernous drones of Bob Rutman's bowed steel cello. The core of this album, Dorothy's only with a full band, lies in the contradiction of traditional psych-folk idioms and the minimal avant-garde, referencing Henry Flynt and Laraaji as much as Karen Dalton. This LP version includes 12 page booklet with unpublished manuscripts, drawings, photographs, and songbooks of the songs from the album, as well as extended liner notes from friends and family of Dorothy Carter, including notable musicians such as Laraaji, Bob Rutman, and Alexander Hacke (of Einstürzende Neubauten). Drops soon - a joint release between Palto Flats & Putojefe Records.

Dorothy Carter was many things - a virtuoso player, storyteller, historian of Celtic and Appalachian folk music, avid lifelong busker, avant-garde musician, and itinerant troubadour, laying a framework for music that existed both within and outside of standard folk idioms - never better represented than on her 1978 masterwork, Waillee Waillee. Underscored by Bob Rutman’s cavernous bowing of the steel cello, the richness of Waillee Waillee’s sound produces an album unlike any other in her discography. In particular, its two side-ending pieces, “Summer Rhapsody” and “Tree of Life,’’ glide with the shimmering filigree of hammered dulcimer and Dorothy Carter’s ephemeral voice floating over Rutman’s droning buzz of the steel cello. The elements of these two tracks suggest something akin to a transcendental Appalachian raga or whirling cosmic folk music, an effortless combination that serves to add additional substance to the remaining tracks on the album.

The title track is one of her most enduring compositions, often performed in stripped down versions throughout her career, and one of her sole recordings featuring a full band, with the contrapuntal interplay of tremulous flute, vibrating steel cello, bass and drums. Lyrically and tonally, her voice would never sound as stirring and refi ned as on this, her most outwardly accessible song.

She counted musical colleagues as diverse as Constance Demby, Einstürzende Neubauten and Laraaji, as well as her lifelong artistic partner and friend Bob Rutman, whose imprint is felt throughout the grooves of this record. The master tapes for this recording were fortuitously discovered in Rutman’s Berlin studio, many, many years later. As recounted in Laraaji’s contribution to the liner notes, Dorothy was “someone who really influenced my early zither exploration and vocabulary and inspired my shift toward hammered zither performance and recording,” after encountering him busking on the sidewalk one day in the 1970s. Later, when living in Berlin in the early 1990s, Dorothy would begin work on manuscripts detailing the history of the dulcimer family and providing extensive sheet music, selected material of which is reproduced in the twelve page booklet included with this release. Dorothy would find later success touring and performing in the late 90s with the ensemble Mediæval Bæbes, which she led with British musician Katherine Blake, playing a prominent role on their first four albums.